February 22, 2013 // 10:05 pm - Following up on yesterday's confirmation of PlayStation 4 video game pricing, today Sony CEO Andrew House also confirmed that the PS4 won't support CD and SACD (Super Audio CD) formats.

Today Sony's CEO Andrew House has officially announced the PlayStation 4 / PS4 console and DualShock 4 controller (similar to the prototype) at PlayStation Meeting 2013!

The Sony PlayStation 4 console will come with 8GB of RAM (additional specs HERE and below) and also include a sleep function allowing gamers to pause PS4 games at any time and resume them from where they left off whenever they wish.

The Sony DualShock 4 controllers will offer a touch pad on the front, a light bar to set apart players alongside a Kinect-style camera to keep track of all connected controllers.

To quote from News10.net (linked above): "Today marks a moment of truth and a bold step forward for PlayStation as a company," said Andrew House, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment.

Along with this comes the official unveiling of PlayStation 4 - a platform designed to bring new innovations to gamers. The platform is being touted as a powerful and accessible system that will define the evolution of gaming itself.

"PlayStation 4 had ignited [developer's] creativity to create new experiences that up until now they can only dream of," commented Michael Denny at Sony's Worldwide Studios.

Taking cues from the PC world, it's eight-core CPU runs on the X86 architecture with a highly-enhanced PC GPU using GDDR5 memory capable of producing more than one-million movable objects as shown in a live-demo during the press conference.

It will also be able to create models with more than 30,000 polygons as shown by David Cage of Beyond developer Quantic Dream. As for system memory, the PS4 is being equipped with 8GB of high-capacity memory backed by a local solid-state hard drive.

"The PlayStation 4 is a much functional gaming platform its CPU and GPU processing power are extremely high," said Yoshihisa Hashimoto of Square-Enix. "Players will be enthralled by the evolution of gameplay that will be on the PS4."

As for its new controller, the Dual Shock four looks very much like the prototype that had been leaked not too long ago. It includes a touchpad, a headphone jack, and a light bar to identify players. It can also be paired with a 3D camera for motion controls. They system also appears to have support for the current motion control scheme, PlayStation Move.

Other new features include the ability to suspend a play session at the press of a button, allowing gamers to pick back up where they left off. It also has a secondary chip to manage uploads and downloads, even with the main power off.

Furthermore, downloadable titles on PlayStation 4 will be playable while its download is in progress. Gamers can also seamlessly upload gameplay video to the internet via the PS4's one-touch sharing feature or provide a spectating experience by live-steaming and can even provide real-time feedback and assistance in return.

On the social side of things, PlayStation 4 is focused around interacting with real-life friends through not only the system's user interface, but also on other parts of the overall PlayStation family of systems and other third-party platforms such as smartphones and tablets. Personalization is also a key thing about the PlayStation 4. The system will learn its users' likes and dislikes and will eventually cater to them.

Cloud gaming is also a bit part of PlayStation 4 via PlayStation Network. With the Gaikai-branded cloud gaming technology, gamers can check out streaming demo versions of games right from the PlayStation Store to allow gamers to immediately experience the game before they buy it. Furthermore, PS4 users can share the games they try out and/or buy via social networks such as Facebook.

"What we're creating is the fastest, most powerful network for gaming in the world," stated David Perry, CEO of cloud gaming company Gaikai. "Our vision is to create the first gaming social network with meaning."

Killzone: Shadow Fall, a first-person shooter game that takes place in a dystopian future where all heck breaks loose.

Driveclub, the next racing game from Evolution Studios where players drive as part of a team against user-controlled in-game driving clubs from all over the world.

iNFamous Second Son, a game from developer Sucker Punch that features an underground of superhumans fighting to bring the social liberties and freedoms that have been (as some might say) compromised in Western society.

The Witness, a colorful open-world puzzle-based game from indie developer Jonathan Blow.

Deep Dawn, a new title running on Capcom's new engine designed specifically for PlayStation 4.

A new Final Fantasy title to be made on Square-Enix's Luminous Engine that the company will debut at the 2013 E3 Expo in June.

Watch Dogs, an open world action-adventure game from Ubisoft.

In addition to the PS4-named titles, Perry mentioned the possibility of providing past PlayStation titles dating back to the original PlayStation One as live-streamed, playable games. That stated, no word was given as to the PlayStation 4's backwards compatibility capabilities.

Furthermore, Sony has confirmed the support of most every major third-party game developer and publisher as well as collaboration plans with a variety of smaller independent game studios.

One of those third-party publishers/developers, Capcom, unveiled Panta Rhei. It's a new gaming engine designed specifically for the high-end graphics and processes of which the PlayStation 4 is capable. Another another of the third-party developers, Square Enix, will be using its high-end Luminous Studio engine to create its PS4 titles.

Along with the announcement of PlayStation 4 is Sony's announcement of expanding its handheld gaming platform, PlayStation Vita, into the living room - a domain dominated by traditional home consoles. This includes the expansion of remote play, allowing PS4 owners to transfer gameplay from the television to the PlayStation Vita a-la the Wii U does to the Wii U Gamepad.

Remote play capabilities will extend beyond games to include services like Netflix and Sony's own Music Unlimited and Music Unlimited. While no further details were supplied about this topic, House revealed that the company will provide more details on the future of the Vita later this year. An official street date and price for PlayStation 4 have yet to be announced."

From GamesFiends.com also comes an overview of the Sony PlayStation 4 / PS4 features, as follows:

PlayStation 4 / PS4 Features:

PlayStation 4 – Yes that’s correct Sony went with the obvious and named the system PlayStation 4. Plenty of talk about PlayStation Orbis, The PlayStation have been cast aside and Sony have shrugged off the apparently superstitious links with the number 4 also.

Based on enhanced PC infrastructure the system will indeed have 8GB of system RAM. The system memory uses GDDR 5 memory which will greatly increase the speed of operation – this stuff is usually kept for higher end graphics cards.

New Dualshock 4 revealed

Dualshock 4 controller has a share button, a light bar at the front (thin the glowing ball from PS Move, better triggers, a small touch bar that looks like the material on the back of the PS Vita, a headphone/mic jack

Dualshock 4 will tie up with a new stereoscopic camera – this will then track the new controller through three dimensional space – again a lot like PS Move

PS4 downloads from the store are instantly playable after a very small download – the rest will download in the background as you play

Seemless uploads of gameplay – uploads as you play after choosing from past few minutes of play

Browse friends live video feed as they play

Remote assist from friends via your PSN list

Real names and pics – probably taken from current social networks

Games loaded by favorite types/developers... demos auto downloaded based on previous latest

Instant “Try it now” using Gaikai will allow you to instantly try a game demo rather than download it first

UStream footage live multicasting

Remote play via a second screen

Remotely transfer your game from PS 4 to PS Vita to continue your game on the remote system.

No backwards compatibility BUT PS1, 2 and 3 titles playable in the future via cloud services

The console will release for Holiday Season 2013

Sony has also released the official PlayStation 4 / PS4 specifications today (available via GamingBolt.com) below, to quote:

"PS4 is equipped with 8 GB of unified system memory, easing game creation and increasing the richness of content achievable on the platform. GDDR5 is used for this memory, giving the system 176 GB/second of bandwidth and providing a further boost to graphics performance. The end result for gamers is new games with rich, high-fidelity graphics and deeply immersive experiences that shatter expectations.

The Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) has been enhanced in a number of ways, principally to allow for easier use of the GPU for general purpose computing (GPGPU) such as physics simulation. The GPU contains a unified array of 18 compute units, which collectively generate 1.84 Teraflops of processing power that can freely be applied to graphics, simulation tasks, or some mixture of the two. Sony have released the complete specifications of the PS4."

From GenGame.net also comes word on the first Sony PlayStation 4 / PS4 pre-order details, as follows to quote:

"GameStop management has confirmed that the retailer has opened a “first to know” waiting list for the PlayStation 4. This isn’t a true pre-order SKU (that will come a little later) but you can go to GameStop now to have your name put on a call list for when new information about the console releases, and you will be notified when the system officially becomes available for pre-order."

Here's a list of developers/publishers confirmed working for the PS4:

ACQUIRE Corp.

ARC SYSTEM WORKS CO.,LTD.

ARTDINK CORPORATION

ASCII MEDIA WORKS Inc.

Bethesda Softworks, LLC

CAPCOM

Chara-Ani Corporation

CRAFTS & MEISTER CO.,LTD.

CyberConnect2 Co.,Ltd.

D3 PUBLISHER Inc.

Dimps Corporation

Electronic Arts Inc.

FromSoftware, Inc.

GANBARION Co., Ltd.

Genki Co., Ltd.

Granzella Inc.

GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE INC.

GungHo Online Entertainment, Inc.

GUST CO.,LTD.

IDEA FACTORY Co., Ltd.

IMAGEEPOCH INC.

Index Corp.（ATLUS)

KADOKAWA GAMES,LTD.

KADOKAWA SHOTEN CO., LTD.

Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd.

LEVEL-5 Inc.

MAGES. Inc.

MarvelousAQL Inc.

NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc.

NAMCO BANDAI Studios Inc.

NIHON FALCOM CORPORATION

Nippon Ichi Software, Inc.

O-TWO inc. (peakvox)

PlatinumGames Inc.

SEGA Corporation

SPIKE CHUNSOFT Co.,Ltd.

SQUARE ENIX Co., Ltd.

SystemSoft Alpha Corp.

TECMO KOEI GAMES Co.,Ltd.

TOSE CO., LTD.

tri-Ace Inc.

Ubisoft Entertainment

WILL CO., LTD

XING Inc.

YUKE'S Co.,Ltd.

BLUESIDE Inc.

Ratloop Asia Pte Ltd

Red Hare Studios

XPEC Entertainment Inc.

17-Bit

5th Cell Media LLC

Activision Publishing, Inc.

Armature Studios

Behaviour Interactive

Bethesda Softworks, LLC

Blind Squirrel Games

Certain Affinity, Inc.

Darkside Game Studios, Inc.

Devolver Digital

Disney

Double Fine Productions, Inc.

Double Helix Games

DrinkBox Studios Inc.

Edge of Reality, Inc.

Electronic Arts Inc.

FarSight Studios

Gaijin Games, Inc.

Gearbox Software

HB Studios Multimedia

Heavy Iron Studios, Inc.

High Voltage Software, Inc.

inXile Entertainment Inc.

Iron Galaxy Studios, LLC

JETPACK Interactive Entertainment Ltd.

Klei Entertainment Inc.

Lab Zero, Inc

LucasArts, a Lucasfilm Ltd. company

Metanet Software Inc

Minority Media Iinc.

Nicalis, Inc

Panic Button, LLC

Psyonix Studios, Inc.

Slant Six Games

Sony Online Entertainment LLC

Spark Unlimited

Spry Fox LLC

SuperVillain Studios

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

Telltale, Inc.

Tribute Games Inc.

Turtle Rock Studios, Inc.

Ubisoft Entertainment

vBlank Entertainment Inc.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Inc.

WayForward Technologies, Inc.

Zombie Studios, LLC

IO Interactive

Starbreeze Studios

2K Games

TEAM17 DIGITAL LTD

YAGER

Zen Studios

keen games

Splash Damage

Stainless Games Ltd

Sumo Digital

Codemasters

TT Games

Avalanche Studios

Blitz Games Studios

Bohemia Interactive

CD Projekt RED

CLIMAX STUDIOS

Hello Games

Just Add Water (Developments), Ltd.

Deep Silver

Lucid Games Ltd

MercurySteam

Ninja Theory Ltd

Nixxes Software BV

Paradox Interactive

Rebellion

Saber Interactive

Creative Assembly

According to SCEE president, Shuhei Yoshida, the upcoming PlayStation 4 will be able to display video in 4K resolution, but games would be presented at a lower resolution.

Current PSN purchases and game saves will NOT made the transition to PlayStation 4. According to Shuhei Yoshida, SCEE boss, this is due to the architecture between PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 is so different.

Update: Sony Europe has now revised it's list of PS4 developers in half, with the updated one below as follows:

Avalanche Studios

Blitz Games Studios

Bohemia Interactive

CD Projekt RED

Climax Studios

Hello Games

Just Add Water (Developments), Ltd.

Deep Silver

Lucid Games Ltd

MercurySteam

Ninja Theory Ltd

Nixxes Software BV

Paradox Interactive

Rebellion

Saber Interactive

Creative Assembly

IO Interactive

Starbreeze Studios

2K Games

Team 17 Digital LTD

Yager

Zen Studios

Keen games

Splash Damage

Stainless Games Ltd

Sumo Digital

Codemasters

TT Games

Finally, when it comes closer to launch (currently slated for Holiday 2013) we will be ready with www.PS4News.com and have also secured www.PS5News.com assuming Sony continues their PlayStation-branded trend well into the future of video gaming.